September 27, 2023
What Remains When Memory Is Set Aside
Lo que queda cuando se deja de lado la memoria
This session begins with a guided contemplation exploring what experience remains when memory is removed, revealing how identity, time, and the known world are constructed from thought. The dialogues that follow address the fine line between sleep and meditation, the process of dis-identification from mental constructs, and how the sense of a separate perceiver is itself a subtle thought. The session concludes with an exploration of how goals, desire, and action function when the contracted sense of self loosens.
meditation
Before Memory
A playful exploration of what remains of your experience when you set aside memory and the world of thinking.
dialogue
The Space Between Sleeping and Thinking
A student asks about the fine line between falling asleep and entering a meditative state, and whether the drowsy, in-between quality of their experience is a problem.
dialogue
The House Built on Memory
A student describes observing how memory, future projection, and fantasy interweave during meditation. The teacher explores how our entire sense of identity is constructed from thought and memory, and what lies beyond that construction.
teaching
The Construct We Forget Is a Construct
A reflection on how the self-image is built on top of something more primary, and how we lose touch with the awareness that preceded it.
dialogue
The Perceiver as a Subtle Construct
A student describes a growing sense that everything experienced, including thoughts, feels "outside" of what they truly are, and the teacher explores how this process of dis-identification can crystallize into a subtle, thought-based perceiver.
dialogue
The Subtle Sense of a Perceiver
The teacher describes a particular stage of practice in which identification has been refined to the point where one can see clearly that one is not what one is experienced, yet a subtle sense of an "I" as a subject or perceiver remains.
teaching
The Snake and the Rope
A reflection on how the sense of being a separate perceiver is a projection of thought, and how recognizing what something actually is dissolves the illusion.
dialogue
The Bubble You're Imagining
A student describes the experience of a separate self dissolving into a unified awareness, and the teacher points out that the separation was never real to begin with.
dialogue
Goals, Desire, and the Contracted Self
A question about whether the dissolution of a fixed sense of self leads to apathy, and how goals and motivation function when identification loosens.
meditation
The Universe Is Doing
An invitation to notice that choosing and doing have no fixed center, and to trust the unfolding of your life like a tree bearing fruit.
dialogue
The Body Shifts Before the Mind Understands
A question about intense body sensations and a feeling of free fall arising during a memory inquiry practice, and how the process of awakening reshapes the body, the mind, and the sense of control.